This essay sets the concern for the safety of Israel in the context of the history of anti-Semitism and the current iteration of Islamic militancy. I trust this approach will shed light on the rational debate America in the public square as well as the demonstrations in the streets.
If you have never been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, I encourage you to go. You will need some time, however. You will want to absorb the enormity of the evil about which you are reading.
The sad reality is that the Jewish people have long been the target of violence. I want to explore that history.
Bible
Esther is an unusual book. As part of the sacred text of Jews and Christians, it does not mention the name of God. The main characters rely upon their wit and courage to outmaneuver the anti-Semite Haman, an authority in the Persian Empire, with his plans to slaughter all Jews in the empire. The sad reality is that Jews have observed the carnival-like festival Purim when the anti-Semites of history have almost succeeded where Haman failed. There was no mighty deed of the Lord to save them from their enemy of anti-Semitism, but only their courage, wit, insight, and cunning. The play, Trial of God, by Elie Wiesel occurs on the eve of Purim after the Jews were almost wiped out of existence by a local persecution.
Hatred of Jews, Judaism, and the Jewish people, have been around since the Persian Empire and especially the Hellenistic regime of Antiochus IV Epiphanies, most of his hatred expressing itself around 170 AD, finding expression in Daniel 7-12 and I & II Maccabees. Those who hate the Jews want them destroyed. Those who hate Jews accept that Jews believe they are the chosen people of God and hate them for that belief.
The anti-Jewish Apion looked upon Cleopatra as a ruler hostile to the Jews; for she seems indeed to have been inimical to them. Still Josephus says ("Contra Ap." ii., § 5) that Apion should have denounced the vices of this devilish woman, and thinks it redounds to the honor of the Jews that they received no wheat from her during a famine in Alexandria. Cleopatra's hatred went so far that when her capital, Alexandria, had been taken by Cesar Augustus and she had lost everything, she conceived the idea that all could yet be saved if she should murder the Jews of her city with her own hands (ib.). Her death immediately afterward saved the Jews from this fate (30 B.C.).[1]
Islam and the anti-Semitism in Medieval Christianity
Islam began with Mohammed. As I share his story, my assumption that, like Buddha, he honestly searched for God in his life. I say this because I am aware that some of us might have read disparaging accounts of his life. I will not go there, largely because I want to try to help us understand the spiritual quest behind Islam.
Mohammed lived from 570 AD to 632 BC. He was born in Mecca in what we know as Saudi Arabia. Tragedy marked his early life. His father died just before he was born. His mother died when he was six. He lived with his grandfather, who shortly died. His uncle raised him. His family was respected and respectable, but they were poor. There was no education for Mohammed, who never learned how to read and write. He learned to work with the traders who came to Mecca, a center of commerce. However, people came to Mecca because it was a center of pagan worship as well. A shrine called the Ka’bah had existed for many centuries. It was a place of worship for 360 different deities that the Arabian people worshiped. It was a cube 40 feet high by 40 feet wide by 30 feet deep. Each tribe had its own pantheon of gods, and each tribe would come to Mecca to worship them and offer sacrifices. Jews and Christians were also part of this mix. Yet, he found himself drawn to both groups. Now, there was a local god of Mecca Al Illah (The God). It was a powerful god, but one of many gods all the same. Condensed, the word was pronounced Allah. Now, Mohammed himself gained much respect as a man of his word. He married Khadija, a woman fifteen years older than he was. They had six children, but the two boys died in infancy. He married nine more times. According to Sunni’s, his favorite was Aisha, who was only six years old when they were betrothed. After his death, she would be involved in collecting his teachings in the Hadith.
As his spiritual journey continued, he came to think that the affirmation of belief in one God was central. Around the time he was 40, he had a profound experience in the cave. During his prayers, he fell asleep and had a dream that would chance his life. In the dream, that at the time he was unsure if it was God or a jinn, an evil spirit of the Arabian Desert. However, he later named it as Gabriel. The angel wanted him to read a parchment; he said he did not know how to read. As he awoke from the dream, the words were written on his heart. During the next 23 years, he would have several such dreams or visions. The people of Mecca did not listen, but his message was that there is no other god but Allah. He did gain a small following, mostly his wife and a few family members. Eventually some 40 people came to believe. When he came down from the mountainside, he recited for these believers the things that that angel had told him in his visions. The believers wrote down the words. Then, his wife died. To make matters worse, a group of people from Mecca wanted to kill Mohammed, viewing his preaching on monotheism as a threat to the established worship of idols. About that time, people from Medina offered the opportunity to be their leader. In the summer of 622, he and his small band of followers fled Mecca and moved to Medina. They set up the first Islamic state. They call this the hajji, and it is the first year of the Muslim calendar. They also use a lunar calendar rather than a solar calendar, so the years will never quite match up. What this means, of course, is that he quickly became a political ruler. He was judge for the city and led a small army. God told him, not only about theology, but about the order of society. He received instruction on how to lead an army and wage war. He expanded power by military conquest. They battled Mecca. A decisive battle took place in which Mohammed defeated the Meccan troops. As a result of this battle, he was able to return to Mecca as its ruler. He consolidated power between Mecca and Medina and across the Arabian Peninsula. He destroyed the idols at Ka’bah and built a shrine for Allah. He would die in 632, at 62 years old. His family compiled the sayings of Mohammed into the Quran.
Within a century, through military conquest, it spread across North Africa and the Middle East. Friends, if we are to give an honest account of the history of Christianity, it must include the notion of judgment. The rise of Islam is one of these times. True, surrounding kingdoms were militarily weak. Yet, Christianity was divided and at war. It had several councils that helped define the nature of Christ and the Trinity. Yet, the approach was to use force to try to bring everyone under compliance. The result was war between Christian parties. Muslims had a strategy. In the beginning, it was convert or be killed. However, it did not take long before it was converting or be taxed and restricted in your behavior. Unbelievably, some Christians welcomed the Muslims, because, initially, they were treated by them better than they had been by other Christians. However, its vision of submission to Allah in all areas of personal and cultural life made it easy to bring its religious and political vision to other peoples.
It tried to enter Europe, pursuing its own crusade, if you will, but was unsuccessful, especially after the defeat in Tours, France in 732.
There were anti-Jewish sentiments before Christianity came into the world under Greeks and Romans. In 70 AD, instead of weeping over the destruction of the Temple and the fall of Jerusalem, many Christians were joyful. Personally, having been there, I cannot imagine it. Yet, they viewed it as the judgment of God. Well, the judgment of God can fall, and you may still respond as Jesus, and weep. Yet, that was not response of the church. Then, when Christianity gained power in 312 AD, it offered theological rationale for the anti-Jewish behavior of the Romans. They killed Jesus. You can go to a few passages of Scripture for support but let me put it clearly. The crucifixion had the complicity of only a small number of Jews in that time. Many Jews came to believe in Jesus in the opening decade after his crucifixion. However, some anti-Semites will point to Matt 27:25, where the crowd places a curse upon itself in asking for the crucifixion of Jesus by saying that his death be upon them and upon their children, which would have been over by the end of the first century. The idea that God would continue this curse throughout history would be a strange theology.
The first act of the first crusade was to slaughter a Jewish community in a nearby town. Many Christians thought of Jews as ones who kidnapped Christian babies and used their blood for healing. They received blame for the Black Plague in Europe. They were segregated into ghettos. They were forced to convert to Christianity or leave Spain. They were prevented from entering certain occupations.
Here is what Martin Luther authored a book in 1543, On the Jews and Their Lies:
What shall we Christians do with this damned rejected race of Jews? First, their synagogues should be set on fire, secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down … thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer books and Talmud.
Theological Reflection
This should make us weep. I think it makes God weep. In fact, I think we can justly look at the history of the church in a comparable way as the Old Testament looks at the history of Israel. God made a covenant, and the church broken it. Theologically, when it cut itself off from Israel and the Jewish faith, it made a serious error. The church is a sign of what God is going to do, bring people together in reconciliation and peace. When the church started to see itself as much more than that, as if it was in some way the kingdom of God on earth, it began to be arrogant, thinking it could use political force to make it all happen.
I am concerned with anti-Semitism in the church. The church has gotten itself into much theological and relational trouble when it cut itself off from its Israelite and Jewish heritage. It has allowed anti-Semitism to rule. It has allowed an understandable but short-sighted form of Christ-centeredness that so focuses upon the revelation in Christ as to deny to the Old Testament any revelatory character.[2] Christians need to remember that much of the New Testament relies upon Old Testament quotes and images. You will not properly understand the revelation of God in Jesus Christ without this context.
How can we claim to be the covenant people of God if we are not doing all we can build bridges to our Jewish brothers and sisters, expressing our love for them and gratitude that they have given us so much. The election of Israel by God finds its confirmation in the election of the church, the mission of Israel to be a light to the nations and joining with the nations in the worship of God finds its fulfillment in the church. In the eternal election of the one man, Jesus of Nazareth, God makes a witness to the covenant that God has decided to establish between God and humanity. The whole community, as Israel and church, God elects in this way and appoints to this service. The special service of Israel within the totality of the elected community consists in the hearing, the reception, and the acceptance of the divine promise. A church that becomes anti-Semitic or a-Semitic suffers the loss of its faith by losing the object of it. The church has every reason to see that nothing interrupts the special service of Israel in the community. God makes those whom God elects free, wise, and rich by electing them. God chooses to make humanity hear the divine Word. This is what God elects when God elects to be a human being in the person of the Son of Abraham, electing the people of Israel to acknowledge its flesh and blood as belonging to God.[3]
If we step back, we can see that Paul is wrestling with his version of the saving plan of God. We might even call it a philosophy of history from the perspective of the significance of the coming of Christ. The issue is that the Jewish people have received the promises and calling of God. How can Paul now say that Gentiles can now claim such promises and calling? He will respond by sketching out the historical dealings of God with humanity. If we go back to the argument in Romans 1-8, Paul says that Christ is the “end of the Law.” He is saying that the Law had its place in the saving plan of God for humanity, but that Christ has now fulfilled that purpose. The saving plan of God continues in calling people to faith in Christ rather than obedience to the Law. Yet, this occurs in a way that fulfills the purpose of the Law. In Romans 9-11, Paul is working on the role of Israel in the formation of the people of God. The political organization of Israel, whether as a tribal federation or as sacral kingship, was the form the covenant people of God took as the focus of the saving plan of God for humanity. Yet, the prophetic notion of the remnant within Israel (I Kings 19:10-14, Deuteronomy 29:4, Isaiah 29:10, Psalm 69:22-23) is a reminder that Israel has always contained the faithful and the faithless. The same is true today. Paul and the disciples are prominent examples of a remnant from the Jewish faith that has embraced Christ as fulfilling the saving purpose of God. However, this means the historical form of the people of God needs to shift from the political organization of the nation of Israel to the formation of the church as the Body of Christ. Bringing people into this community is now the center of the formation of the people of God who are to be a light to the nations. The church fulfills the saving purpose of God in such a way that it does not replace Israel but fulfills the purpose of Israel in the world as the people of God. This means the church must always humbly acknowledge its indebtedness to Israel and therefore its Jewish roots. The rejection of the gospel by the Jewish people means that the people of God presently divide like Judaism and Christianity. Even though Israel has rejected the saving purpose of God in Christ, God has not rejected Israel. For God to do so would mean that Christians, newly incorporated into Israel and the people of God, should have some anxiety about whether God will abandon them for some new people! Thus, God remains faithful to the people of the old covenant. Sadly, the history of the church is that it has claimed as an exclusive quality the election of God only for itself.[4] In the process, the church needs to admit its complicity in the spread of anti-Semitism. However, the way people of God will find their destiny is to find their unity in Christ. The faith and hope of the church includes the preservation and redemption of Israel. The hope of Israel in this world is the intimate concern the church has for it.[5] It ought to pain us that when Jews see the cross or think of the church, they do so with fear. The church needs to admit that while it must have a respectful relation with all religions, it must have a special relationship with Judaism. We will never understand truly Jesus or the early church if we reject the Jewishness of its origin. In the process, the faithfulness of the love of God to Israel will become visible to all. Thus, the providence of God is such that God incorporates the faithlessness and stubbornness of Israel into the saving plan of God for humanity. God is in fact at work in all things, even in most of the Jewish people rejecting the gospel, for the good of those who love God. God has considered human sin in the saving plan for the redemption of humanity.[6] Since the way God created resulted in the formation of independent creatures, human sin became the cost.[7] Such a view of saving history ought at least to raise the issue of whether Judaism and the church are the remnant God has for a people from within the human race that God intends to save in the end. Such a philosophy keeps in tension the purpose (choice, election, predestination) of God and respect for the freedom and dignity of those whom God created. The action of God is prior to all human action since God is the source of our being. If God is to exercise providential care for humanity and its destiny, then obviously, God is at work in all things, bringing good out of evil, and moving humanity toward its destiny in Christ. Another way to say this is that God is present everywhere at the same time. Yet, God is at work in all things in a way that shows respect for the freedom and dignity of those whom God has created. God chooses to respect the freedom and dignity of those whom God has made within the limits determined by God so that the saving purpose of God for humanity will reach its divinely appointed end. We know that end because of Christ, in whom God is acting to reconcile and redeem humanity.
We can see the record in the Old Testament that God continually held out a gracious hand to a disobedient people of God. We see the same in the New Testament. God does not abandon the attempt to address Israel. Thus, the crucifixion of Jesus does not allow Christians to treat Jews as accursed by God. The crucifixion is no basis for anti-Semitism. The Jewish origin of the church is relevant to how the church treats the Jewish people. Even the original resistance to Jesus (crucifixion) and to the message of Paul by the Jewish people has meant the good news brought to all people. Such is the providential care of God for humanity that God can take what human beings intend for evil and turn it into good. The hardened heart of the Jewish people became an integral part of the salvation-history that leads to gentiles hearing and responding to the gospel. The growth of the church among the gentiles has the partial intent of showing to the Jewish people what God intended for the mission of Israel. Yet, even in its resistance to this insight, Israel remains the possession of God. [8]
Paul raises the question whether the rejection of the gospel of Jesus Christ by most of the Jewish people means that God has rejected his people in 11:1. The answer is an emphatic negative. How could Christians be certain of their own comparatively new membership in the circle of the elect of God if God did not remain faithful to such election despite the unbelief of Israel? This is the point the apostle makes when he advocates the inviolability of the election of the Jewish people in 11:29 and 9:6. He has in mind Christian assurance of election. God has not annulled the covenant with the Jewish people. Yet, how could Paul cling to this conviction in view of what was for him particularly the painful experience of the overwhelming rejection of the gospel by his own people? The primary solution lies in the remnant concept of Old Testament prophecy. He could point to Elijah and the Jewish-Christian community. As the people of God, Israel is for the time being confined to this remnant, but at the same time the people of God are expanding as the mission of the apostle to the Gentiles is bringing in believers from the nations in 9:24-26. Paul sees an abiding link between the church and the Jewish people, a link he describes in terms of the root of the olive tree that carries the wild branches that contrary to normal rules have been grafted into it in 11:17-18. The hardening of Israel by God serves the purpose of bringing the gospel to the Gentiles, so that the hardening does not finally exclude from God or from sharing in divine salvation. At the same time, the history of the church has shown that it has not heeded the warning by Paul that we find in verses 17-24 of claiming an exclusive election for itself.[9]
What about the Jews?[10] That is a question that crops up from time to time in the church. It is not a biblical question. The New Testament question is, “What about the Gentiles? How shall those who have had no part in the promises of God to Israel be saved by the God of Israel?” As Christians, we are “honorary Jews,” those who have been adopted into the family of God. We must repent of the church’s historic sins against the Jews and work in our own day for the peace and preservation of God’s people, the Jews.
Today, we must talk about sin, the sin of anti-Semitism, the sin of anti-Judaism. We must talk as Christians. We must admit to our beloved church’s complicity in the long, terrible history of persecution of the Jews. Such persecution was especially acute in the Hellenistic and Roman domination of Israel. When the church gained influence in the power structure with Constantine, instead of guiding political leaders away from anti-Semitism, and it could have done through a faithful reading of Romans 9-11, it bowed to the political and cultural policies of anti-Semitism. It did so on what most of us would now view as twisted theological reasoning.
The question of our relationship to the Jews is an old one. Yet, the gifts and calling of God irrevocable, says Paul in Romans 11:29.
First, we as Christians need the Jews, for the promises of God to the Jews are the basis on which our faith in Jesus rests. We are related to Judaism in a way that differs from our relationship to any other faith. There is no way to understand Jesus without understanding the faith of Israel. The Old Testament is not a meaningless collection of irrelevant ancient writings. The Old Testament is also our good news. The good news embodied in Jesus is the good news that we hear preached in the Old Testament, namely, that God is going to have a people.
Writing in a Nazi prison cell in 1943, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote,
My thoughts and feelings seem to be getting more and more like the Hebrew Scriptures and no wonder. I have been reading it much more than the New Testament for the last few months. It is only when one knows the ineffability of the name of God that one can utter the name of Jesus Christ. It is only when one loves life and the earth so much that without them everything would be gone, that one can believe in the resurrection and a new world. It is only when one submits to the law that one can speak of grace. . . . I don’t think it is Christian to want to get to the New Testament too soon and too directly.
Second, although we need the Jews, it is quite understandable why many Jews may not want us. It is painful for us to realize that many Jews view our beloved church with great pain and even some bitterness. The cross, the symbol of our faith, was horribly twisted and transformed, in our sin of anti-Judaism, as a sign of torture against God’s very own people. When Jews look at the cross, no wonder some of them view the cross with bitterness. Their bitterness is a testimonial to our church’s tragic infidelity.
Thus, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, when asked a few years ago what Jews would like from Christians, replied, “All we want of Christians is that they keep their hands off us and our children.” These words are painful to hear, but they are words that we must hear for our own good. The Jews remind us of a sad, terrible history of Christian wrongs against the Jews, and we do not much want to be reminded of our sin. It is painful to be reminded that some of the same hateful feelings and actions that led the Gentile Romans to crucify the Jew, Jesus, have led fellow Christians to persecute Jesus’ people, the Jews. Rather than deny that history, we ought to repent and ask God to forgive us our sins against God’s people.
Third, I think that we Christians must admit that we have tragically, by our sin against the Jews, forfeited our responsibility, our right, to try to convert the Jews. Christ has called us to go into all the world and make disciples (Mt 28). If the Jews are going to believe that Jesus is their redeemer, then it will have to be from people other than those of us who have so betrayed our redeemer through 2,000 years of persecution, indifference, and complicity in violence against the Jews. If we want to do anything for our sisters and brothers in Christ, the Jews, then we might urge them to be faithful to the religion of Israel, rather than attempt to convert them out of that faith.
If we are converted to Christ, if Jesus “saves” us, then that means that we are converted into the promises of God to Israel. The best way to think of ourselves, in relationship to Jews, is that we are “honorary Jews.” We have been adopted into a family that was not originally ours. That was the great miracle that still so astounded Paul. He had no doubt that God’s promises had been made to Israel. The amazing revelation that still astounded Paul was that, in Jesus, God’s gracious salvation had been extended even to the Gentiles, we Gentiles.
Totalitarianism and Ideology
The anti-Semitism that was the shadow-side of the emergence of liberal-democracies, along with slavery, colonialism, and racialism, found its most full expression in World War II, of course. The churches of Germany supported Nazi leadership, although the confessing church movement, of which Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were a part, was a significant divergence from the norm. Why such violence directed at the Jewish people within countries that had liberal democratic institutions is the topic Hannah Arendt explores in The Origins of Totalitarianism (1948). She does not divide the world so neatly into ‘oppressor’ and ‘oppressed’. Instead, she invites readers to a path of redemption. The subterranean stream of Western history finally came to the surface and usurped the dignity of western tradition. That subterranean stream of western civilization includes slavery, the suppression of women, anti-Semitism, communism, fascism, colonialism, and imperialism.
There may be a temptation to see the Nazis as an isolated phenomenon, the product of a few ‘bad apples’, Arendt reminds us how easy it was for many European populations to adopt the mob mentality that gave rise to extremism. Her concern is that history tends to repeat itself when we absolve ourselves of personal responsibility. If we believe that we would not have been complicit (or even active) in these movements, we may allow our own social behavior to go unchecked. Arendt demands from her reader a personal investment in unlocking the true narratives behind Nazism and Stalinism. By reducing the complex history behind these movements to oversimplified excuses such as ignorance, we fail to be accountable for the past.
Anti-Semitism in Europe arose in the context of the rise of capitalism and liberal democratic institutions, which brought about a decline of Jews in government power and wealth. The Jewish leadership naively thought they could make friends with power and did not need to make friends with the people. They had faith in the political state. The Rothchild family exerted its influence and declined in influence. The Jewish family preserved its traditions. Aristocratic anti-Semitism grew as Jewish alliance with the state grew. Banking scandals of 1880 to 1900 turned leftist lower classes against them. Europe developed several anti-Semitic parties. The result in Germany was that after its loss in WWI and the depression, Jewish leaders had close relations among the economically and politically powerful who were part of that defeat. This created an environment that would be receptive to racialist ideology developed and promoted by a dedicated few but would appeal to the masses.
Zionism itself was an expression of the nationalism movement in Europe, as various peoples sought to shape their identity in political institutions. The failure of Europe to find a place for the Jewish people, finding full expression in the final solution of the Nazi government in Germany, was not the fault of the Palestinians, but they, through the United Nations, suffered for that failure. They had already committed themselves to the Nazi solution to the Jewish problem, and the continued presence of the Jewish state has heighted the belief that Jews must be annihilated. The tension between the Jewish state and the former residents was inevitable. However, the failure of Islamic countries that surround Israel to find a place for the Palestinians, along with the convenience of diverting attention from the political and economic failures of those states with a common hatred of Israel and Jews, provides fertile soil for continued tension.
Many still consider it an accident that Nazi ideology centered around anti-Semitism and that Nazi policy, consistently and uncompromisingly, aimed at the persecution and finally the extermination of the Jews. Only the horror of the final catastrophe, and even more the homelessness and uprootedness of the survivors, made the Jewish question so prominent in our everyday political life.
The Nazis had succeeded in turning the legal order on its head, making the wrong and the malevolent the foundation of a new “righteousness.” In the Third Reich evil lost its distinctive characteristic by which most people had until then recognized it. The Nazis redefined it as a civil norm. Conventional goodness became a mere temptation which most Germans were fast learning to resist.
The turning of the moral order on its head is embodied in the Judenrat, an administrative body established in German-occupied Europe during World War II which represented a Jewish community in dealings with the Nazi authorities. The Germans required Jews to form Judenräte across the occupied territories at local and sometimes national levels. Jewish leaders had inadvertently allowed themselves to fall into a fiendish trap and become part of the system of victimization. Had the Jewish people been unorganized and leaderless, there would have been chaos and plenty of misery, but the total number of victims would have been less. The result was the smooth-running deportation system that herded Jews into trains and to their death. Although Jewish leaders may not have known the truth of the destination at the beginning, they did know by the end. Yet, the penalty to the Jewish leaders for not complying would be the death of their families. In Nazi occupied territories, some local fascists did not agree with the final solution, so they put up active resistance, as it was among the Dutch, and passive resistance, as in Italy and some countries of eastern Europe.[11]
In her 1963 essay ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’, published as a series in the New Yorker, she wrote about ‘the banality of evil’. People wanted to believe that the Nazis were a monstrous aberration who could never come again. She suggested that most were ordinary conformists and followers; the kind of people we can find all too easily in any time.
She notes that the imperialism of the 17-1800’s prepared the way for the race-based imperialism of Hitler and Stalin. She contrasts this with the class warfare analysis of Marxist analysis. Imperialism assumed the inferiority of those whom the originating nation colonized were racially inferior. When Russians have become Slavs, when the French have assumed the role of commanders of a special force, when the English have turned into white people, when Germans become Aryans, then this change will itself signify the end of Western civilization. For no matter what learned scientists may say, race is, politically speaking, not the beginning of humanity but its end, not the origin of peoples but their decay, not the natural birth of humanity but its unnatural death. Nazi was a pan-German movement; Bolshevism was a pan-Slavic movement. Both were imperialistic, with tribal theories of chosenness. Both had conflicts with Judaism. To lose political rights means to lose rights of being human. Such totalitarianism, however, has a horrible originality. It differed from earlier forms of oppression. The crucial factors that made totalitarianism possible included collapsed political structures and masses of uprooted people who had lost their orientation and sense of reality in a world marked by socio-economic transformation, revolution, and war. The leaders recruited from these rootless masses through propaganda. Such persons blur the distinctions between fact and fiction, truth and falsity. All totalitarian states are based on lies. Had the Nazis not lied about Jews, there would not have been a Holocaust. Only people who believed that all Jews, including babies, were vermin, could they lock hundreds of Jews into a synagogue and burn them alive. That similar lies are told about Jews today by Arab governments and by the Iranian state should awaken people to the Nazi-like threat that anti-Semitism still poses. Totalitarianism is based on a secular, pseudo-scientific ideology that reduces the complexity of reality to the logic of one idea pretending to be able to explain everything. In its self-understanding, the movement is merely carrying out the alleged laws of nature or history outlined by the ideology. It is quintessential, however, that this “central fiction” a totalitarian system rests upon, is translated into a “functioning reality” by a “completely new” form of “totalitarian organization.” While government remains chaotic and fluid, the power nucleus of the country becomes the superefficient and supercompetent services of the secret police.” That is why the concentration and extermination camps of the Nazis, and the Gulag of the Soviet Union are the real secret of the power of the Party. The total domination at which totalitarianism aims becomes real in such camps. What makes totalitarianism difficult to understand is not only the gigantic scale of atrocities committed by it, but its senselessness. Their crimes cannot be explained by self-interested or utilitarian motives or ends.[12]
Violence toward the Jewish people has a long history. Anti-Semitism has been discredited, thanks to Hitler, perhaps not forever but certainly for the time being. For most of my life, most people have wanted to repent, in some way, of that history. We want the future to be different from the past. Yet, some people in our world want to continue this history of violence toward the Jewish people. Many are in the Middle East. Islam in the Middle east and North Africa has connections to the Nazi view of the Jewish people. They aligned themselves with the Nazis during World War II, viewing Nazis as liberators from European colonialism. Arab countries openly offered refuge to hundreds of them. The Grand Mufti’s connections with the Nazis during the war were no secret. Newspapers in Damascus and Beirut, in Cairo and Jordan, did not hide their sympathy for Eichmann or their regret that he “had not finished the job.” They look upon Israel as the new Nazis, committed to genocide of Palestinians, even though the fact is that the Palestinian population has grown. They view Israel as the last vestige of colonialism in the Middle east and therefore as an oppressor of the Palestinians. Such is the history of Islam in the Middle East, as represented by Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran in particular, and Muslim militants in general.
Some in Europe and America are “fellow travelers” in adopting the position that Israel is an occupier and aggressor, always to be opposed in contrast to the oppressed view of the Palestinians. All of this, despite the obvious dominance of the Arab population in the Middle East, the obvious possibility of settlement of Palestinians in Arab states (after all, Jews come from around the world to Israel), and the wealth Arab states possess to accomplish all this.
The source of present Islamic ideas about Jews arises from its support of Nazi Germany in World War II. One can understand that support. Europe made these Muslim lands colonies. France and England had carved up much of the region. The opportunity to rid themselves from these colonial powers arose in World War II. Unfortunately, it came through their support of Nazi Germany. One can trace quite directly the Imam’s who had personal contact with Nazi leaders.
Israel Amid the Nations
Religion is doing harm is in the Middle East. For some, this harm has become a reason to desire the disappearance of religion. Sadly, human history suggests that even if one could remove religion from humanity, humanity would still do violence to each other. In the Middle East, Jews feel oppressed by their neighbors, and are suspicious of the European community. Palestinians cannot have the rights of full citizenship in Israel, for Jews justly look upon them with suspicion. Palestinians experience oppression by the Jewish state.
Yet, we who live so far away must examine the relationship between Palestinians and Jews in the larger context of the Middle East. The cynic will say that Jews and Muslims have been fighting for so long it will never stop. The position papers of Christians for Peace and Justice in the Middle East claim to avoid simple black-white analysis, while still recognizing that Israel is the aggressor and as the occupying nation does have major responsibilities to resolve the conflict. My question is whether it is possible to declare Israel the aggressor and not have a simplistic analysis. Looking backward, one must question the wisdom of placing a Jewish state in an area where Arab nations that supported Nazi Germany in World War II would surround them.
First, the Islamic world in the Middle East perpetuates an anti-Jewish sentiment among their people that would make Hitler proud. The Palestinian Liberation Organization and many Islamic countries call for the destruction of the state of Israel. We need to look honestly at how all too many Arab governments treat their citizens, whether in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, or the PLO. If Jews in Israel are paranoid, it is for good reason. If such countries cannot treat their citizens as bearers of individual rights and as persons of worth and dignity, how can either Israel or America hope that they would treat the Jewish people or the American people with worth and dignity? Their own Moslem brothers further oppress Palestinians and sisters in that they are rich in oil money, yet those funds do not flow to the Palestinians to relieve their plight.
The wars in the Middle East are the frontline of the Islamic Nazi offensive. This offensive is a sixty-year aggression of Muslim Arabs against the Jews. They rationalize it at each turn by epic lies that resonate with many people on the political Left in the West. They suggest that the Arab aggressors are the victims; that the Jews stole Arab land (Israel in fact was created out of the ruins of the Turkish empire); that there is a Palestinian entity that wants peace with the state of Israel (there is none – there is not a single Palestinian leader who supports the existence of Jewish state).
Some Americans have begun to analyze the situation in the Middle East from a simplistic Marxist critique that Israel is oppressor, and Palestinians are the oppressed. To make this analysis is to decide beforehand the outcome of any discussion and to make reconciliation impossible. A Marxist critique can end only in alienation and the perceived moral superiority of one cause over another. The failure to see that both Palestinians and Jews are the recipients of oppression is to fail to enter the moral ambiguities that exist in the region. The failure to see that the governments who rule Arabs oppress their citizens ought to suggest the little value of negotiated agreements with them would be. It also ought to suggest what they would do to the Jewish people in Israel if given the opportunity. To adopt such a critique do so is to ignore the anti-Semitic and racialist realities of Islamic militancy and ideology.
The Palestinians are the only people in history to support in their majority a national death cult, to worship the murderers of little children (including their own) and to proclaim them saints and “martyrs.” The father of Palestinian Nationalism, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was an acolyte and ally of Hitler who preached the extermination of the Jews and planned to construct his own death camps for Jews in the Middle East. The miseries Palestinians have suffered are self-inflicted, the inevitable consequence of staking their national ambitions on the genocide of another people, while embracing a death cult for themselves. One can see the truth of this analysis in noting that Palestinians are not now using the billions of dollars they have received in aid for their people, but instead, continue their program of genocide.
The United Methodist Church often words stories about these tensions with an eye toward the Palestinian side. Official United Methodist statements are on the side of what for Israel is a non-starter for peace, which includes a return to the 1967 indefensible borders. For example, United Methodist Book of Resolution #312 affirms, without recognizing the paradox, the right of Israel to exist and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. In Book of Resolutions 323, the United Methodist Church supports Resolutions 242 and 338 for a just lasting peace. Security Council Resolution 242, passed in 1967, calls for Israel to withdraw from land occupied in the 1967 war. It also calls for recognition of national boundaries by all parties. It desires peaceful passage through international waterways. It wants a “just settlement” of the refugee problem. Security Council Resolution 338, passed in 1973, calls for cease-fire of the present conflict, all parties to implement resolution 242, and that all talks have as their aim a just and lasting peace.
Here is the problem with calls for Israel to return to 1967 borders, which has borders not possible to defend. Israel’s 2005 withdrawal to its 1967 border with Gaza led not to peace but to expanded terrorism after Hamas staged a bloody coup in 2007 and transformed Gaza into a base for launching rockets against Israeli civilians. Israel cannot afford to return to its 1967 border with the West Bank unless it has ironclad guarantees that any territory relinquished will not again be transformed into a base for future terrorist attacks. This is impossible if Hamas, committed to Israel’s destruction, remains a potent force.
Second, it will take great courage from secular rulers to teach religion, especially the orthodox Jew and the Muslim, to have a different role than it does now. Religion does not have the capacity within itself to adopt a humble role in society. It will require secular leaders with great courage to teach religion its proper place in political life. As an aside, the same is true in economics, for religion typically cares more for eternity than it does for this moment in time. Religion does not have the tools to improve the material conditions of people; that can only come from good economics, science, and technology. In any case, it will take a leader of the PLO who will take strong action against groups like the Islamic Jihad. It will take a Jewish leader who will keep Orthodox Judaism in its place. Whether such strength can arise in the present situation is questionable, for it will mean taking a strong stand against many of one's own people.
Although many Americans seem to think that the United States has a role here, I am not convinced. If the people who share this geographical territory do not want peace, I do not see how the United States can impose it. Given the current hatred of the United States among many Arabs, American troops in the region would not be something I want to see. Many Americans justly wonder about putting American soldiers at risk. As a temporary measure, some kind of peacekeeping force will prove necessary, even if it is from countries other than America.
Third, one of the key issues that exist in the background of any discussion of these religions is the crusades. Jews and Muslims have a right not to forget this history. Yet, Christians must not forget that the reason for the crusades was that Muslim armies had conquered Spain, threatened France, and had advanced upon Vienna, Austria.
Sadly, as Jeff Jacoby points out, there is a mindset that sees a massacre of Jews and concludes that Jews must in some ways have provoked it. It is the mindset behind the narrative that continually blames Israel for the enmity of its neighbors and makes it Israel's responsibility to end their violence. But the truth is simpler, and bleaker. Human goodness is not hard-wired. It takes sustained effort and healthy values to produce good people; in the absence of those values, cruelty and intolerance are far more likely to flourish. For years the Palestinian Authority has demonized Israelis and Jews as enemies to be destroyed, vermin to be loathed, and infidels to be terrorized with Allah's blessing. Children who grow up under Palestinian rule are inundated on all sides -- in school, in the mosques, on radio and TV, even in summer camps and popular music -- with messages that glorify bloodshed, promote hatred, and lionize "martyrdom." None of this is news. The toxic incitement that pervades Palestinian culture has been massively documented. What children are taught in the classrooms of Ramallah, Nablus, and Gaza City, Hillary Clinton said in 2007, is "to see martyrdom and armed struggle and the murder of innocent people as ideals to strive for. . . . This propaganda is dangerous." Indeed, it is lethal.
On Oct. 7, 2023, the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas slaughtered over 1,400 Israelis—including civilians and even babies—and abducted 200. Thirty-two Americans were among the individuals killed, and 11 citizens are still unaccounted for, according to the U.S. State Department. Friday, Rina Dee, 15; Maia Dee, 20; and their mother, Lucy, 48, went on a drive through the Jordan Valley on the way to Tiberias, just miles from where Joshua would have brought the Jews across the Jordan River. There, they were attacked and fatally shot by a Palestinian Arab terrorist who riddled their car with 20 bullets.
Hamas, the governing Palestinian party in the Gaza Strip and a powerful force in Palestinian Arab areas of Judea and Samaria, celebrated the killings. “We congratulate the Jordan Valley operation and warn the occupation against continuing its aggression against our Palestinian people and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque,” they said.
Meanwhile, husband and father Rabbi Leo Dee gave a eulogy for half of his family: “Let the Israeli flag today send out a message to humanity which is: We will never accept terror as legitimate. We will never blame the murder on the victims. There is no such thing as moral equivalence between terrorist and victim.”
Sadly, the media played the moral-equivalence game, treating the killing of two sisters and their mother as another round in the supposed “cycle of violence” between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs. Of course, in that “cycle of violence,” Palestinian Arab terrorists target innocent civilians and then hand out candies when they achieve their evil goals, while the Israeli Defense Forces seek to root out and destroy terrorists.
The Middle East conflict is about Muslim rejection of a Jewish state in the middle of the Muslim world. One side wants the other side dead. If, tomorrow, Israel laid down its arms and announced, ‘We will fight no more,’ what would happen? And if the Arab countries around Israel laid down their arms and announced, ‘We will fight no more,’ what would happen? “In the first case, there would be an immediate destruction of the state of Israel and the mass murder of its Jewish population. In the second case, there would be peace the next day.”
The Jews introduced to humanity the God in which most of the world believes; brought into existence the Bible that is the basis of the New Testament and the Quran; gave the Christian world its Messiah; and gave much of the world its morality through the Torah, the Prophets, and the Ten Commandments.
Nazis and Islamists are the recent manifestation of such hatred, and many Islamists now explicitly admire the Nazi program. Throughout the Arab and Muslim world, genocidal anti-Semitic propaganda is all-pervasive. And as Prof. Robert Wistrich has written, “The ubiquity of the hate and prejudice exemplified by this hard-core anti-Semitism undoubtedly exceeds the demonization of earlier historical periods – whether the Christian Middle Ages, the Spanish Inquisition, the Dreyfus Affair in France, or the Judeophobia of Tsarist Russia. The only comparable example would be that of Nazi Germany in which we can also speak of an ‘eliminationist anti- Semitism’ of genocidal dimensions, which culminated in the Holocaust.”
Yet, the issues surrounding the Middle East occur in a global context. Among my many concerns is the renewal of anti-Judaism in Europe and in the United States. I hear it the way in which people use the word "Jew." I notice it in the Nazi type of propaganda in the Arab world about Jews. I notice it the European opposition to American support of Israel that has a strong anti-Jewish tinge to its argument. Our memories are so short. The atrocities committed against Jewish people in "Christian" Europe are open for all to read about and, I hope, lament. The anti-Judaism within the United States is still a matter of concern. We have forgotten the lessons of the Holocaust already. From this writer's perspective, Christians "owe" the Jewish people in a large way. Christians are not close to paying that debt.
Historically, Jewish interest in Jerusalem and a state in this area arose because of European nationalism in the 1800’s. Zionism was the movement that embodied this desire of Jewish people for a political state, even as other peoples in Europe desired to have a political state formed as a nation to represent them. Jews have had a presence in the land for as long as we have any record of census. Although European anti-Semitism encouraged Jews to seek a new home, it was not the cause.
Given this context, Israel has a right to defend itself in the way it chooses, and American policy ought to be to back Israel in that choice.
Israel and Islam in the Pluralism of the American Public Square
The primary concern of many Americans is that Islam in America and around the world does not share the American notion of religious freedom, freedom of speech, and tolerance. For all too many Muslims, violence is quickly and easily on the table as a way of responding to those with whom one disagrees. Too many moderate Muslims have ties to terrorist organizations. Even moderate Islam has an incredibly backward attitude toward women. Even moderate Islam is incredibly anti-Semitic. Although Muslims want others to tolerate them, Islam in general seems incredibly intolerant of others.
“Christian fundamentalism” in America is not organizing armies, killing those who disagree, and burning down mosques, synagogues, or mainline Protestant churches. Frankly, some Christian fundamentalists do things that embarrass me as a Christian and as a pastor. I understand the desire to paint them with same brush as “Islamic fundamentalists.” However, I think such an approach shows an unwillingness to see the moral nuance involved. Yes, the rhetoric and actions may be harsh and unchristian, but it is a large distance from killing people with whom they disagree. Yes, Christians have complex theological debates. Yet, they are debates held within the context that they will not do violence to those with whom they disagree. They will call each other names, they will form new denominations, but they will not kill each other. The Islamic community includes many doing violence to those who convert from Islam to Christianity, violence to homosexuals, and violence to women. It certainly includes anti-Semitism of every stripe.
“Moderate” and “peaceful” Muslims need to speak out against the violent and militant expressions of Islam. Of course, references to the American values of religious freedom and tolerance are good reminders. However, in the case of Islam, the religion needs to be brought into the twenty-first century.
One dimension of religion is its assertion of human worth and dignity that transcends tribe and nation. This implication is present in the Genesis account of creation, in which all of humanity derives from a common ancestry. Christianity has incorporated this belief in slow, halting, often hypocritical stages -- a history that should leave Christians tolerant of the slow, halting, hypocritical progress of other traditions. Islam is today where Christianity was before the 1600's. In that sense, it is just as necessary to be careful. I am suggesting that the implications of this shift within Christianity are profound. Considering this belief in the worth and dignity of humanity, the purpose of social influence for Christians is not to favor their own faith; it is to serve a view of universal rights and dignity taught by their faith. It is not to advance their own creed; it is to apply that creed in pursuit of the common good. This is what turns religion into a positive social force -- a determination to defend the dignity of everyone. What this means to me is that religion removes itself from the temptation to use the levers of power to enforce its faith and values upon others. Religion must operate within the sphere of moral persuasion to fulfill its purpose. Religion must operate within its limits, which will then allow it to seek the “universal” application of its values and principles in the minds and hearts of those who freely choose to believe.
What I find equally disturbing is that there seems to be increasingly less room in our society for vigorous public debate about the merits of different religious viewpoints. It is considered rude and presumptuous to challenge the veracity of competing religion's beliefs. If we agree that human beings rightly seek truth, can we do it without engaging in spirited public discourse?
First, we should discuss the authority of the Quran.
Thomas Carlyle said of the Quran, “It is as toilsome reading as I ever undertook, a wearisome, confused jumble, crude, incondite. Nothing but a sense of duty could carry any European through the Koran.” I have found this to be true. It was a sense of duty that brought me through to the end.
To state the obvious, in the Christian view, the Bible does not need a further revelation from God, largely because of who Jesus is. Further, to say that our Bible is corrupt and needed the Quran to correct its errors is hardly conducive to friendly conversation, especially, in the Muslim perspective, God is the one doing correcting. In fact, this is quite frustrating if you tend Jewish, Christian, and Muslim dialogues. When you point out that what they say is not what happened, because you know your Bible, their response is that they are grateful the Quran has come along to correct it. My point is that here is one reason dialogue becomes difficult. If one side starts from the position that the other side is wrong and inferior, I am not sure how dialogue happens.
Second, how does God speak to human beings?
I do not know about you, but if someone comes up to me and says, ‘God told me to tell you x,” I want to listen (God might have), but I am also immediately suspicious. How do they know that it was God, and not their own thoughts and feelings? The same is true in some recent American religious history. The Mormons, for example, have their Book of Mormon that supersedes the New Testament. It will also correct Christian teaching. Very simply, retiring into a cave and coming out claiming one has a revelation from God is not going to be sufficient, nor should it be sufficient.
Third, is the Quran a step back?
When I go from my New Testament and then go to the Quran, it feels like a step back into the Old Testament. The Old Testament has many violent passages. In fact, when I lead Old Testament Bible studies, the reaction I receive the most is some surprise at how violent it is. Frankly, when I read that king David slaughtered one-third of the men of a nation he conquered, or Elijah taking the sword to the prophets of Baal, it makes me uncomfortable.
Yet, when I consider it more, the Quran is less than the Old Testament. I do not find a Job, struggling with suffering, or the beauty of the creation in Genesis, or the beauty of Psalm 23, or the beauty of the suffering servant passages in Isaiah. When I read of the powerful prophetic calls of Jeremiah and Isaiah, and then compare it with the revelation to Mohammed, I find the latter lacking. What Muslims consider the reason for its corruption, that it was written over many centuries by many people, is for me its strength. Historians, priests, prophets, poets, and teachers all made their contribution to what we know as the Bible. When we read the Old Testament, we are interacting with their environment in a broad way. They must battle with the gods of other religions over a prolonged period. They must deal with defeat and victory, and how their God is active in it. In the New Testament, we are reading people who were not only close to Jesus, but they also had to word themselves in a new Greek environment. For example, when Paul wrote of Christian ethics, he used the language of the Greek philosophy of his day, that of Plato, Aristotle, and others. Such facts connect the Bible to some of the great philosophical and literary traditions that humanity has ever produced.
All of this leads to another crucial point. Christians know that people authored the book, under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit. We do not even have the words of Jesus in the language he spoke, Aramaic, but rather in Greek. The New Testament is already a translation. For the Muslim, the Arabic words of the Quran are the exact words God spoke to humanity.
Fourth, we need to point to differences regarding Jesus.
Mohammed received a quite different revelation concerning Jesus than did the disciples of Jesus and Paul. Muslims regard Jesus as a prophet. You might remember in Mark 8 that Jesus asked, who do people say I am? One of the answers was prophet. Of course, the affirmation of Jesus as the Son of God is what the New Testament embraces. Muslims believe Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, he performed miracles, and he was the Jewish Messiah. Now, to accept the virgin birth, but not embrace the theological point, that he was the Son of God, is confusing. They do not think he was the Son of God. He rejected the notion that Jesus came to die for the sins of the world. He also taught that we do not need someone to die for us, because God forgives when we sin and counts virtuous deeds in our favor.
Frankly, the Quran seems confused. He will admit the virgin birth, but deny the reason for it, namely, a declaration of who he is, the Son of God. He seems to think Christians worship three gods: Allah, Mary, and Jesus. At other points, he has thought that Christians teach that God had intercourse with Mary. He thought of the Trinity as a form of polytheism. To take it a step further, he thought that Jesus was never crucified. Instead, someone else was crucified. No resurrection occurred. Jesus lived his own life, got married, and had children.
All of this is, from a Christian perspective, a step back. You see, there were some Christian communities, most of them in what we know as the Sinai Peninsula and in Syria, who taught that the divine Son of God could not have really died. It was called doceticism. Jesus was the Son only from his baptism to the time just before his crucifixion. The Son did not really die. However, this view was, obviously, rejected by the early church. It rejected it by bringing together these books, and calling it a “canon,” a rule or standard of faith. Yet, Mohammed goes back to these notions to discredit the apostles and the entire New Testament.
Fifth, we need to talk briefly about dueling eschatology.
I do not want to get into this too much, but when I lead a Bible study of Revelation, I came across a book that explained Islamic eschatology. One major strand of the teaching concerning the end believes the Muslim Messiah will return and lead Muslim armies to Jerusalem. At that point, Jews and Christians will be given one last chance to convert to Islam. If they reject the message, the Muslim armies will kill them all. If this sounds familiar, it should. One way to interpret Book of Revelation is that it is the Anti-Christ who will lead the armies against Jerusalem, and then, not any human army, but God, will destroy the forces against the people of God.
Spirited debate is part of what pluralism in liberal democracy. We need to be willing to have honest and direct debate regarding religious belief.
For a long time, the western world has accommodated competing religious views with a "whatever floats your boat" mentality. Religious pluralism has been respected, and the right to choose one's own faith, or no faith at all, has been protected. Occasionally, tensions between competing points of view have run high, but differences have been resolved peaceably. If one's religious views did not impinge on the rights of someone else or unduly infringe on the sovereignty of the secular civil sphere, most any religious viewpoint has been accommodated. It may even be that a heightened sense of post-modern individualism and relativism has embedded this view even more firmly in the cultural mindset.
In general, then, from a moral and religious perspective, Americans have become incredibly tolerant of everything.
However, something in the soul of many Americans recognize when suspicious behavior by a group, even a religious group, places their sense of freedom and tolerance at risk. The quite reasonable concerns of many Americans are being ignored. Here is where I think Islam needs to be brought into the twenty-first century, and United Methodist bishops, pastors, and laity, can be part of that education.
On September 11, 2001, Islamic extremists, animated by their faith, committed mass murder in the name of jihad, and the world was changed forever. Continuing attacks by Muslims within the United States, on a smaller scale, have increased the negative image of Islam to a point greater than what it was immediately after 9/11/2001. Some Americans seem to have forgotten that Muslims throughout the world celebrated these deaths. Islam in America is the place that Islamic extremists, who do organize armies and kill people, can recruit American Muslims to do their bidding. What many Americans want to see is an Imam willing to take all risks necessary to condemn such an approach to disagreement with others. In the aftermath of 9/11/2001, the United States has been faced with a challenging conundrum: How to reconcile freedom of religion and religious pluralism with a deep-seated suspicion of a religion that – at least in some of its theological circles – mandates the murder and/or forced conversion of non-believing infidels? Again, Islam needs lectures, seminars, re-education, and reform, to be brought to the place where its “extremists” will only be as intellectually annoying as Christian “extremists,” rather than criminal by organizing armies and killing people.
I think that many Christian leaders are simply unwilling to deal with the reality that Islam has a strong “fundamentalist” and “extremist” strand that places violence on the table to resolve disputes. When, for example, the Imam who wants to build a mosque near ground zero warns that there will be violence if it is not built, he is acknowledging that global Islam has a violent element within it. When people like Salman Rushdie express their view of the Quran and Mohammed, and others express concern for a violent response from faithful Muslims, it reveals the violent nature of Islam. Today, Muslims jail and kill Christians in Africa and Asia. Yet, Christians around the world do not respond by spontaneously burning down the local mosque. To me, this difference is all the difference.
It seems as if America after 9/11/2001 is still trying to navigate some quite difficult waters. The blessing of America is that we live under a constitution that celebrates the right for each and every person to speak freely in service to their deepest held beliefs. We should not allow any distorted sense of political correctness, or fear of militant reprisals, to discourage us from exercising this cherished right. If we do, we may one day be forced to choose our faith at the barrel of a gun.
I want to mention an organization that I think is among those in the Muslim community that desire this conversation. Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser is the founder of American Islamic Forum for Democracy. You can go to their web site and see for yourself.
The reason we even need to have this conversation is that for many centuries, the only Islam was political Islam. This is why “submission” is such a difficult word to convey between those who us who have grown up with the freedoms of western civilization and the Muslim. You see, we in Christianity believe in submission to God, and in fact, part of our spiritual growth is to learn such submitting of our will to the will of God. Yet, when the Muslim speaks of submission, he or she means something quite different. The point is that culture, business, and political life, are to submit to God. This is why Iraq and Afghanistan are “Muslim” countries, rather than having nations in which there is no establishment of religion. The reason for this goes to the origin, where Mohammed went from delivering revelations concerning God to revelations concerning how to organize political life and to fight a war. If these are the direct words of God, then a Muslim culture is to follow the same guidance. When you add the Hadith, you have a large body of material that details how to organize a nation.
My point is that within Islam, it is difficult to separate submission in your private life from submission of the cultural, economic, and political life. The thrust is toward the absolute domination of the teachings of Mohammad in every part of society. That is what submission to Allah means.
All of this is to say that Islam feels like a step backward in political and cultural ideas as well. Even in the time of Mohammed, after the fall of Rome, Christian bishops and the emperor, when in Rome or in Constantinople, kept their powers separate. They recognized a difference between the church and the state that would later develop into the rejection of establishing any religion in America. Therefore, we grow up understanding that the neighbor may well think differently, but we value the freedom to pursue beliefs and happiness in our own ways. In Islam, the goal is an Islamic culture, so that the Muslim will have an easier time practicing his or her religion.
This is why Muslim women, given a chance to enjoy western freedoms or Muslim restrictions, will choose the restrictions.
This is why if you convert from Islam to another religion, you can be put to death. You have blasphemed Allah.
To state the obvious, the promise of paradise is itself a motivator for believers to have a society, a world, in submission to Allah. It would be wonderful if we could get to a place where teaching children to be suicide bombers was no longer option.
When I attended one of the dialogues among Jews, Christians, and Muslims, I met fine Muslim young man. He was Pakistani. He told me he had been to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and then to America. He then asked me if America should pay special attention to him, to profile him. I told him, I hope in a loving way, that yes, I hoped someone was watching. He seemed harmless, but his travel patterns, I hoped, would raise suspicion.
Later, we sat together and listened to the presenter talk about the need for people in the West to understand Islam and accommodate its practices, such as stopping during work and bowing toward Mecca five times per day to pray. Well during the question-and-answer period, I asked at what point Islam will think through how it will accommodate to a society that is free. She looked at me like I was an alien. However, my Muslim friend for that evening whispered immediately, “What a great question.” In talking with him afterward, he said that the greatest issue within Islam was over the issue I have been discussing. Will it ever get to a place where it can separate its private practice of religion from the political imposition of Islam throughout society?
Conclusion
Christians have a responsibility to witness to those of other faiths. It is important for the church to understand them. It is also important for the church to learn from them where it can. It is also important for the church to witness. It will gain a greater hearing if the church treats them as persons with respect, if the church treats their desire for God with respect, and if the church listens to what God is doing in them. Such is the nature of prevenient grace. In the Jewish, Christian, and Muslims dialogues in which I have participated, the Muslim invites Jews and Christians to come along to what they believe is the advance in revelation made in the Quran. If, as I have suggested, the Quran itself, its view of Jesus, and the political application of Islam are stepping back, we are the ones who need to help them come forward to the new things God is doing in Jesus Christ. Here is the message of love of God and neighbor. They will say that Islam is a word that means peace. What I want to do is introduce them to a relationship with the Prince of Peace.
9/11 Learning
If Biden and the Democrats do not have much interest in actually governing, they have a keen interest in using force against their political opponents. That part of their agenda is very real; it consumes their attention and energy in a way that addressing inflation or the border crisis does not.
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[3] Church Dogmatics 34.3.
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[6] Augustine, City of God, 14.27; 14.11.1.
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[8] Barth, Church Dogmatics 34.4
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[10] William H. Willimon, 2005.
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